Centers | EMIC

Brewster McCracken

Brewster McCracken is President and CEO of Pecan Street Inc., a nonprofit research institute headquartered at The University of Texas. The institute’s research focuses on electric and gas reliability, environmental and behavioral economics aspects of energy use. Mr. McCracken was one of three global smart grid project leaders invited by the government of Japan to present at the one-year anniversary conference for the reconstruction of Fukushima in March 2012. He is lead author of the institute’s research analysis comparing customer electricity use in greenbuilt and non-green older homes, Data-driven Insights from the Nation’s Deepest Ever Research on Customer Energy Use. He is the lead author of the institute’s forthcoming whitepaper characterizing diffusion of innovation categorization of electric vehicle owners participating in Pecan Street’s electric vehicle research (which includes the nation’s highest concentration of electric vehicles).

He was elected to two terms on the Austin City Council. Through his elected position, he founded and chaired the city council’s Emerging Technologies Committee, led the city’s collaboration with The University of Texas to establish technology incubators in bioscience and wireless technologies and served for six years as a board member of Austin Energy, the nation’s fourth largest municipally-owned utility.

Prior to holding elected office, he practiced commercial litigation for nearly a decade with two large international law firms. He is an honors graduate of Princeton University and The University of Texas School of Law, and he also holds a master's in Public Affairs from UT’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.